JF Mezei wrote on Mon, 15 Oct 2018
17:37:51 -0400:

On 2018-10-15 07:46, Jeff Findley wrote:

If you look at Russia's overall rate of launch failures and Progress
vessels not making it to ISS (three so far), it's pretty damn clear that
this recent Soyuz failure with a crew on board isn't a one off failure.


Internally, Roscosmos would know if they reduced quality assurance or
what changes they have made that would result in a change in the safety
culture.

They obviously need to get flights back to normal as soon as possible.
But internally, they should, by now, have enough data to justify
inceaseing quality assurance and fixing culture to ensure quality.


But they won't.


The more difficult part is change culture to remove blame. Let that
worker go to supervisor and be rewarded for showing he drilled hole ins
wrong place instead of him fearing reprissals and plugging hole with his
gum and then hiding it by screwing the control panel over it.

(The SNCF in their presentation to NTSB outlined the importance of this,
calling it "Just and Fair" policy that needs to come from the top to
cover everyone so nobody is affraid to go to their supervisor.)


The Russians operate on a very 1960's QC model. 'Blame' is an
integral part of that.



Soyuz, as a launch
vehicle, is nearing the end of its life and the new launch vehicle meant
to replace it is literally taking decades to come online.


Out of curiosity, what is "old" about Soyuz being launched today?


You mean besides it being a 1960's design?


It seems to be that its performance is "good enough" and that it doesn't
justify spending megabucks on a new rocket (which is why it isn't
happening) and instead just improve the Soyuz which they have done over
the years.


They've made third stage changes. Justification isn't the problem.
Having the money is the problem.


Also, considering what SpaceX has achieved in terms of landing stages,
it would be wise for Russians to put their "new" rocket on hold while
they redesign it to be able to be re-used like Falcon9.


Why would they do that? ULA isn't doing that with their new rocket.
ESA isn't doing that with their new rocket. The only people doing
that are SpaceX and Blue Origin. Everyone else is still stuck in the
paradigm that it's 'cheaper' to throw the whole works away every time
rather than spend a little extra money to enable some reuse.


Is there much of a point today to design a new non-re-usable rocket ?


Ask ULA. Ask ESA.


--
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable
man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore,
all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
--George Bernard Shaw